Do You Know The Wicker Man?

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By Stax

Nicolas Cage

According to Empire Online and The Sunday Times, a remake of the 1973 horror cult classic The Wicker Man is in the works at Universal. The original film starred Edward Woodward (who went on to greater fame as TV's The Equalizer) as Sgt. Howe, a "God-fearing policeman (who travels) to the island community of Summerisle after an anonymous tip-off compels him to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. There he encounters Christopher Lee¿s group of ritualistic pagans and the investigation builds towards the film¿s peerlessly chilling climax." Empire Online claims that the remake was to have been directed by Joe Berlinger (Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows) but that now filmmaker Neil LaBute (Nurse Betty, In the Company of Men) will helm it instead.

Empire also claims that the new Wicker Man will be set in the United States, much to the dismay of the original film's scribe Anthony Shaffer. Shaffer, who reportedly "wanted to be consulted before the project moved forward", criticized the remake as being indicative of an "attitude (in Hollywood) that if anything happens that is worth anything it has to be in the States. ... I don't think it bodes well that Cage wants to play Woodward's part and a lot of remakes have come to grief." Universal execs countered this early criticism by insisting that theirs "will be a recreated version of the original. ... Cage will not be playing a puritanical or celibate Scottish policeman, but apart from that it won't be changed radically."

Considering that Nic Cage is currently attached to about a dozen different movies  including Ghost Rider, David Fincher's Hard Boiled, and Standing Room Only  who knows if this remake of The Wicker Man will ever even see the light of day?